Black Moon
by KillerGeishaYumi
Summary: Yumi has a dark secret...Ulrich has a dark secret...what happens when the other warriors find out? More important, what happens when XANA finds out? UxY; my first Halloween fic, rated T for intense scenes.
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's note: **__In order for this fanfic to go smoothly, I changed Yumi's vote at the end of _The Secret_. This is set about halfway through season 3, and William is already part of the gang._

* * *

Chapter 1

* * *

Yumi staggered out of the scanner in a foul mood. She slammed the elevator button with every intention of giving Jeremy what for: he hadn't warned her of the Megatank that had eliminated her. It wasn't until after the elevator remained closed for ten seconds that she remembered Jeremy had locked it because of Xana's attack.

"Of all the things Xana could have done," she grumbled while she started back for the ladder, "Why'd he have to possess an axe murderer?"

Yumi knew there was a problem the minute she poked her head through the trapdoor: the lab smelled strongly of blood, and there were crashing noises coming from the far side of it. Jeremy wasn't in sight from where she was; neither was Ulrich (who had stayed behind to protect Jeremy) or Odd (who had been devirtualized before Yumi).

"Jeremy?" Yumi called hesitantly. When she got no answer she tried again. "Ulrich?"

"Ulrich's dealing with our uninvited guest," Odd's shaky voice came from near Jeremy's chair. Yumi climbed all the way up and looked at Odd – and nearly choked.

Jeremy was lying on the floor next to his chair, in a pool of his own blood. Odd was sitting next to him, looking dreadfully pale and keeping one hand pressed to a gaping wound in Jeremy's side.

"When…" Yumi began, creeping closer. Then she gulped down a wave of nausea and tried again. "When did that happen?"

"Not long after I got up here," Odd admitted. "Things were getting pretty crazy. Speaking of crazy, how much longer till Aelita deactivates the tower?"

Yumi stared at Jeremy's blood as she rapidly calculated what she'd seen. William's massive sword was proving very useful against almost every monster, and he probably knew about that Megatank by now. Unfortunately, they still weren't all that close to the tower, and Megatanks were on the list of monsters that William struggled with. Add that to how much blood Jeremy had lost – and was still losing, given that Odd really didn't know exactly how to stop a wound like that from bleeding…

"Too long," she finally said. "Jeremy's going to bleed to death first."

Odd whimpered. "Are you sure? I don't really know what I'm doing here, but maybe you can…"

"First aid doesn't really cover this kind of thing."

That shut him up for a while. Then he eyed Yumi warily. "Well, couldn't you – bite him, or something?"

Yumi looked away from the blood and stared at Odd. That hadn't been an idle suggestion: he knew what he was talking about, at least as much as anyone with no official knowledge of the general facts. "How long have you known?"

"Since that glitch – remember? When we ended up in each other's bodies?"

Of course; her physical differences were obvious enough, given that Odd was mildly obsessed with oral hygiene. Put a mind like that in her body for more than a couple of hours, and they'll make the connection.

"Seriously, would that work?"

Yumi gave the suggestion some thought. "Not by itself: Jeremy's lost too much blood. Now, if you were to volunteer as an emergency donor…"

Odd whimpered again, this time in anticipation. "Well, okay…if it'll save Jeremy."

"Fine – get your vest off and press it over that hole. Jeremy can't lose any more blood." Yumi crept around until she was sitting next to Odd while he followed her instructions. "Are you sure you're ready?"

Odd gulped and nodded.

Yumi leaned in close, whispering one last instruction in his ear: "Don't pass out." Then she sank her fangs into Odd's neck. To give him credit, his only reaction was to flinch.

"Jeremy, is everything all right?" Aelita suddenly asked from Lyoko.

Yumi didn't have to be a genius to figure that one out: Jeremy was out cold (not to mention dying) and was unable to answer Aelita. Ulrich was still fighting the psycho killer on the other side of the Holosphere, and couldn't take the call. And Yumi was still sucking Odd's blood. That meant the duty of keeping Aelita posted was up to Odd, but he had his back to the computer. He couldn't see the earpiece that was hanging behind his head, and he certainly couldn't reach it. Yumi could see it, though, and might even be able to reach it without stopping what she was doing.

"Jeremy?" Aelita asked again.

"I'm going to have to answer that," Odd told Yumi in a voice that sounded ridiculously calm.

"Mmph," Yumi mumbled, leaning into Odd a little and grabbing for the earpiece. She had to try twice before she could get her hand around it, but then she drew it over and hooked it clumsily over Odd's ear.

"Hey, Aelita – are you almost at the tower yet?"

"Odd? No, there's been a slight setback…"

"I think 'slight' is an understatement," William interrupted. "Where the heck is Jeremy? We could have used a heads-up!"

"Ah…"

_Please, Odd,_ Yumi begged silently; _please don't tell Aelita that her boyfriend is knocking on death's door! She doesn't think as well when she's worried!_

"You want the good news?"

"That would be nice, yeah."

"Yumi's going to save his life in another minute or so."

There was silence for a minute. "Odd?" Aelita finally asked, "Is Jeremy in trouble?"

Odd let out a giddy-sounding laugh. "That's an understatement, I'm afraid. We're definitely going to need a return trip, so shut that tower down ASAP."

Yumi unhooked her fangs from Odd's neck and opened Jeremy's mouth. Odd would probably think in his light-headed haze that she was going to give Jeremy mouth-to-mouth breathing. She had no intention of correcting him; not yet, anyway.

_He probably really will pass out if I tell him what I'm really doing. Or throw up._ Yumi set her thoughts aside and started coughing blood into Jeremy's mouth, rubbing at his throat to encourage him to swallow. If enough of her toxins had permeated that blood, they would turn Jeremy into a vampire; if that happened fast enough, he would heal himself.

_If._

"Yumi," Odd said dreamily. Yumi ignored him: she didn't particularly want to think about what she was doing in any sense of the word, and coming off of instinct to respond to Odd would require her to think.

"Yumi," Odd repeated, a little more urgently. Yumi tried to speed up – if it was important, then she wanted to be _done_ when she responded to Odd.

Then something went down with a heavy thud and a loud clatter, very close to Jeremy's feet.

"Oh," Odd said faintly.

Yumi spared a glance; the axe murderer was unconscious on the floor. Apparently, Aelita had made it to the tower in time, which meant a return trip could be safely launched now. But where was Ulrich?

Ulrich came limping around the Holosphere, minus his shirt and with blood streaming from his left shoulder.

"Hey, Ulrich," Odd said in dreamy cheerfulness. "Can you launch a return trip? I don't think I can get up there."

Ulrich shook his head slowly. "I don't think I should try: I'm too tired. I might push the wrong button or something. What happened to you?"

"I got to be a blood donor for Jeremy."

"Oh."

Jeremy suddenly convulsed, startling Yumi into jerking backwards.

William came up the ladder. "I think somebody should get to Lyoko, right now."

"Why?" Odd asked. He sounded half-asleep.

"Because that giant jellyfish grabbed Aelita while I was driving off the last of the Hornets. Then Aelita blew me away."

Ulrich groaned. "Fine…we don't need to lose another sector. Yumi, do you think you could virtualize me?"

"Uh-huh," Yumi answered as she got to her feet. She felt a little woozy, but she could still move.

Ulrich grinned fiendishly at William as he walked past. "Beautiful, isn't she?" he asked.

William didn't answer: he was too busy staring in horror at Yumi's fangs, which were still dripping blood.

Yumi dropped into the chair and started typing. "Transfer, Ulrich...scanner..."

William's voice came back with a rush. "You're a _vampire_?" he exploded.

"Shut up…virtualization."

"Why the hell didn't you _tell_ me?"

"You mean you'd tell everybody if you were a blood-sucking creature of the night?" Odd asked vaguely.

William rounded on him. "And why'd she tell _you_, anyway?"

"She didn't: I found out, when a scanner glitch made us switch bodies."

"I kind of wish he'd figured it out five hours sooner than he did," Yumi commented dryly. "It would have given him second thoughts about acting stupid in my body."

Jeremy shifted and groaned. Then he opened his eyes and blinked at Odd. "Odd? What…happened?"

"Oh good, you're awake," Odd replied. "Well, the guy with the ax nailed you one, and Yumi turned you into a vampire to save your life. Aelita deactivated the tower, and then devirtualized William when Xana possessed her again, and now Ulrich's chasing her around trying to devirtualize her before she destroys the Mountain Sector."

Jeremy gave Odd a strange look. "Are you all right? You sound…drunk."

"Yumi had to take a lot of my blood to give to you, because you'd lost too much of your own; even turning into a vampire couldn't fix that. Speaking of which," Odd tilted his head to look at Yumi upside-down, "Am I a vampire too, now?"

Yumi spared Odd a glance. "No…not yet, anyway. You'll probably be one before the sun comes up, if it comes to that."

Ulrich's and Aelita's life points suddenly plummeted to zero at the exact same time. Yumi let out a sigh of relief.

"Jeremy, could you launch a return trip? I really don't think you want to be a vampire for the rest of your life: it's not an easy life for the turned."

"Seriously, though," William spoke up crossly, "Does _anyone_ else know you're a vampire?"

"The principal does," Yumi told him. "That's one reason why I'm just a day student. Everyone else at school is kept informed on a need-to-know basis."

"What?" William shouted.

Jeremy pushed enter. "Return to the past, now."

"Later," Yumi told William as the white wave enveloped them.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

* * *

"So…why does the principal know you're a vampire?" William asked as he sat down next to Ulrich on Jeremy's bed. Normally Ulrich would have preferred plague to sitting anywhere near William, but he was feeling a little sick at the moment.

Yumi shrugged. "He had to know. Vampires often aren't allowed anywhere near schools, and in some cases they're arrested and taken away. That actually happened to someone my parents knew – that was when they adopted Hiroki."

Aelita's eyebrows lifted. "Hiroki was adopted?"

Yumi nodded. "That wasn't long after you came to earth for the first time. Anyway…I don't know the details, but Mr. Delmas is actually sympathetic to the supernatural population."

"Your fangs are groovy," Odd suddenly said from the floor, "I had a good long look at them in the bathroom mirror, when I was in your body that one time. Why do you have a reflection?"

"Odd," William said in a strangled voice. "How can you talk about something like that so calmly?"

Odd blinked at William. "Why, are you scared of Yumi now? Vampires weird you out?"

"I _don't_ want to talk about it," William snapped. Odd grinned, but warning looks from both Yumi and Ulrich kept him quiet.

"Just so you know, you're doing great," Yumi told William. At his startled look she went on, "Usually, when people learn that they're friends with a vampire, they freak out completely."

"And then ditch them," Ulrich added sourly. He'd had personal experience with that one, albeit for a different reason.

"I wouldn't do that!" William exclaimed.

Jeremy turned away from his computer. "Yumi, do you think Xana already knows you're a vampire?"

Yumi shrugged. "He might know _now_, if he correctly interpreted my actions before the tower was deactivated. I don't see how he could have figured it out earlier than that: there are only four other warriors to compare my scan with – and only one of those is a girl. Although…" she ducked her head sheepishly. "I _almost_ told that false Franz Hopper, when he had me all worried over that alteration."

Aelita's eyes widened. "Good thing you _didn't_. Xana could have…" she hesitated. Then she cocked an eyebrow at Yumi. "Um, how many of those rumors about how to kill vampires are true?"

"Like, what is it about vampires and garlic?" Odd asked curiously. "And why do you have a reflection?"

Yumi sighed. "What are you thinking of, Aelita?"

Aelita frowned. "Is it possible to kill a vampire by driving a wooden stake through his heart?"

Yumi smiled grimly. "Of course: you can kill a _human_ like that. Nearly every possible method you would think to end a human's life with, you can end a vampire's life with it. There are differences, of course: for one thing, it takes maybe twice as much force before a vampire can be crushed to death. For another, if a poison doesn't kill a vampire within five or ten minutes, recovery's only a matter of time: vampires heal very fast."

Odd sat up. "How fast?"

Yumi pulled her sleeve up and dragged her nails up her forearm, leaving long scratches. Then she turned her arm so that the others could watch as the scratches closed by themselves. Ulrich didn't react. Yumi's clawing her own arm hadn't completely taken him by surprise; if he'd been in her place and someone asked him how fast he healed, he'd probably have done exactly the same thing.

"If anyone wanted to kill a vampire by stabbing them to death, they'd have to keep a wound open long enough for a vampire to bleed to death. That requires for the killer to either physically hold the wound open…"

William made a noise that sounded suspiciously like he was trying not to throw up.

"…Or stab a vampire repeatedly until he or she dies."

"No wonder you last so long against someone Xana's possessed," Aelita said wonderingly, "If you bounce back that easily."

Yumi shrugged. "Unless I'm injured by night, I don't heal as quickly."

"That had been quick," William commented, pointing at Yumi's arm.

"That had been self-inflicted," Yumi pointed out. "In the old days – when my _grandparents_ were children – vampires would injure themselves so badly that they'd look dead to the humans wanting to kill them…and they'd recover much faster than if something else had hurt them that badly."

"Oh."

"Jeremy?" Aelita suddenly asked. "Do you think it's likely that Xana would try to take advantage of Yumi's being a vampire?"

Jeremy nodded. "I think Xana would take advantage of anything that would give him an edge. Yumi, is there a way to stop a vampire's healing power?"

"There are certain chemicals that can reverse it, when undiluted," Yumi replied. Suddenly a smirk appeared on her face. "But unless Xana decides to take control of a vampire slayer or a truckload of garlic, I don't see how he can take advantage of those."

Ulrich's eyebrows lifted in mild amusement. Putting vampire slayers and garlic in the same sentence made it pretty obvious that the chemicals in question could be obtained from garlic. "Well, I haven't smelled any garlic deliveries like that in all this time…how common are vampire slayers?"

"They're not, anymore," Yumi said in a distinctly relieved tone. "I think there's still a guild of them, but they don't take action around here."

"So we have nothing to worry about!" Odd said cheerfully. "All we need to know now is…" he sat up and looked straight at Yumi. "Why do you have a reflection?"

* * *

_**A/N:** Yeah, yeah, I know - short. This is mostly a bridge chapter, explaining some of the weaknesses Yumi has._


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

* * *

Yumi slipped through her front door fairly late. Her parents actually didn't mind if she wanted to roam the streets all night, as long as she checked in with them before dusk and then returned home before dawn.

"Yumi!"

Startled, Yumi looked up to stare at her father; he was wearing a very elegant suit, and had combed his hair neatly.

"Why weren't you back home half an hour ago?" he demanded. "Never mind, hurry – upstairs! Get the guest room cleaned up, quickly! You're lucky that you have any time at all to get ready!"

Yumi bolted for the stairs, considerably rattled and racking her brain: she didn't _think_ there were any ceremonies that required a distinguished visitor to stay for more than an hour…

When she got to her floor she noticed a large bat hanging in a far corner and staring at her, obviously spooked. She knew who it was, of course. "Hiroki, get down from there and tell me what's going on."

The bat's form extended and distorted until it became her foster brother, still hanging upside-down from the ceiling. "Elder Mandy," he said softly, "Is coming here."

_What_? Yumi just barely managed to conceal her shudder as she closed herself in the guest room; she'd forgotten about Elder Mandy. Whenever Yumi chanced to be reminded of her, she thanked the Lord that Mandy had _not_ been the Elder in charge of her Roseblood Ritual three years ago.

Once in the guest room, Yumi looked around. It wasn't really all that messy; it was just dusty, and that could be taken care of in less than fifteen minutes. With a shrug and a sigh, Yumi closed her eyes and focused.

In an instant she exploded into a flock of bats, rushing around the room and kicking up clouds of dust. Most vampires could do this trick, but – Yumi felt smug as she opened the window while dusting – few girls her age had much control over it. It was a reflex, and most vampires didn't see the sense in turning it to their willpower. Yumi wanted its activation to be as consciously driven as possible, because she didn't want any friends to be scared off just because they succeeded in startling her. She also didn't want to turn into a normal-looking bat anymore, because the thought of how much mass would have to be concealed in her shadow before her size would be believable…it made her skin crawl.

"Yumi?" her mother called up. "Elder Mandy's here."

Guiding the dust into a cyclone, Yumi blasted it out the open window before collecting back into her human form. "Coming, Mother," she called, trying not to sound snide as she went back downstairs.

Elder Mandy waved at Yumi as she came to the entryway. All the Elders were well over seventy, but they retained most of their looks far longer than that. Unlike the rest of the Elders, however, Mandy looked almost like a nine-year-old girl. Her short blonde hair drooped limply, and her pale eyes betrayed her true age by the vast wisdom that stared out of them.

"Hello, Sister Ishiyama," she murmured. Her voice could probably fool a human, depending on what she was saying, but she sounded much older to a vampire. "You've grown up since I last saw you."

Yumi's quiet reply was unintelligible even to her own ears, but it was grateful. She hoped.

"Hiroki, come take Elder Mandy's bags," her mother said.

Yumi struggled to conceal a smile as Hiroki tiptoed downstairs and took the large faded bag from Mandy, trying not to look like he was taking care not to touch her hand. He made no move to take her other bag – a black satchel with amulets dangling from dark red tassels – and she didn't even offer it to him.

"Yumi," her mother added, "Show her the guest room and help her settle in."

Yumi's mood went crashing back down. If she'd been given a choice between eating garlic and helping Elder Mandy get comfortable, she'd have swallowed nine whole bulbs.

Hiroki shouldered the bag and grinned wickedly at Yumi as he turned towards the stairs; he'd barely been her brother for two and a half years, and he already knew her too well.

"Thank you for opening your doors, Mother Ishiyama," Mandy said, drawing her short skirt out in a half-curtsey. Then she took Yumi's hand – it was a close race between will and reflex, but Yumi didn't jerk away – and crooned, "Yes, please show me my room. You have no idea the winds I had to challenge, and I would love a comfortable place to relax."

Yumi led Elder Mandy upstairs, bending her legs through stubborn willpower. "Your room is the second door on the left," she forced out when they were halfway up. Yumi knew there ought to have been honorifics on that sentence, but she was barely able to say anything with Elder Mandy's hand wrapped around hers.

Hiroki stepped out of the guest room just as they reached the top. "Your bag is next to the dresser, Elder Mandy," he told her with a bow, backing away. "Now, I have to get to bed – school tomorrow…"

_Get back here, you traitor._ Yumi couldn't very well say that in front of any Elder, so she kept her mouth shut and her fangs locked as she led Mandy into the guest room.

"Oh, this is lovely!" Mandy breathed as she swept in, carefully placing her satchel on the dresser. "But…no young echoes, besides yours. Haven't your friends ever asked to spend the night?"

"Elder," Yumi began, but Mandy turned around and lifted her hand to forestall the protest.

"Never mind: there are enough echoes in the rest of the house that I know your friends have visited." Suddenly, Mandy became very serious. "And one of your companions is a werewolf."

Whatever Yumi had been expecting her to say, it wasn't that. "I didn't know I was friends with a werewolf…"

"Obviously: werewolves can only attend your school if they take their medicine, and our sense of smell is not strong enough to penetrate the haze of normality the anti-lunar drugs give their…scent."

Yumi suspected that Mandy was going to say "stench;" the blood feud between vampires and werewolves hadn't been buried for so long that the current Elders were able to tolerate werewolves. In fact, it was unlikely that Mandy ever would, if it was true that she'd been injured by a werewolf.

"And you have never heard a known werewolf speak, so you would be unable to identify an unknown one by voice." Mandy twisted one of her satchel's amulets thoughtfully. "Have you told your friends that you are a vampire?"

Yumi's eyes opened wide. "No," she replied. It was technically true, after all…

Mandy smiled at her. "You are so very like your mother, when she was your age: always answering the question by how it was phrased, in order to sidestep the heart of the issue."

Suddenly, Yumi decided that enough was enough. "Wouldn't a werewolf have been able to smell that I was a vampire, meds or no meds? Anyway, if a werewolf _did_ want to destroy me, he would have to make the attempt by day because none of them are stupid enough to try breaking into my house at night. And werewolves aren't permitted in a lot of public places unless they take their anti-lunars, _especially_ by day." Then she stalked to the door. "It has been a marvelous conversation, Elder Mandy, but I have school tomorrow and I must go to bed."

Elder Mandy shrugged. "Good night, Sister Yumi," she said as she closed the door behind Yumi.

"You're brave," Hiroki said in awe from the ceiling next to the guest bedroom's door.

Yumi jumped, almost exploding into a bat-swarm, and stared up at her foster brother. "How long were you there?"

"Five minutes."

Yumi sighed. "Just go to bed," she told him. Then she shut herself in her room and thought about her conversation with Elder Mandy.

One of her friends is a werewolf. Well, why not? In a world of normal humans, supernatural people tended to attract each other like magnets.

While she got her nightgown on, she thought over which of her friends could be the werewolf. It didn't matter much to her, but she suspected it might become important sooner or later. She was positive Jeremy, Aelita, and Odd _weren't_ werewolves: Werewolves didn't come in blond or rose, and thanks to the day spent in Odd's body, she knew that his sense of smell wasn't even equal to a vampire's. That left…

_Oh, God: either Ulrich or William is a werewolf. _And they both had a crush on her – or at least, Ulrich did; William's crush only lasted until he saw the blood dripping from her fangs.

Yumi dropped down on her bed with a sigh. "Okay, think," she said softly, "Is it important enough to tell Jeremy?" Well, maybe – but not until morning, and not unless she could get him well away from both Ulrich and William. There just wasn't any cause to offend or alienate either of them.

_Why is life never easy?_


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

* * *

Ulrich woke up in a cold sweat, with the sickening realization that he'd slept too long. Thrashing out of bed, he jerked one of his drawers open and started digging through it in search of his medications.

"Ulrich?" Odd mumbled blearily as he pushed the blankets off his head. Ulrich ignored him, finally uncovering the bottle. A quick shake told him that it was empty, though, and in desperation he began looking for a spare bottle.

"Ulrich, is everything all right?" Odd asked, sounding a little more awake.

"My meds," Ulrich growled; his voice was deeper and huskier than it was supposed to be. "I have to take my meds – I should have taken them an hour ago."

"What happened an hour ago?"

"The moon started calling." Then Ulrich gave up his search for the spare and whirled, fixing Odd with a gaze that was far too intense and turned the blond boy's expression from confusion to fright. "I'm a werewolf, all right? Look, you've got to get me to Yolanda – she's got anti-lunars, and I need them if I'm to stay safe when the moon's up. The moon's pull is strongest twice a day!" he shouted in frustration as Odd looked blankly out the bright window.

Odd jumped and looked back at Ulrich. "Uh – what am I supposed to do?"

Ulrich stood up, a spasm throwing him into the door. "Just follow me – as close as you can – and keep me from chasing anyone." His skin was starting to itch and burn, the muscles beneath it swelling and extending. If he was to avoid killing anyone – or worse, turning them – he had to get to Yolanda fast. After two attempts to get his writhing hands around the knob, he managed to get the door open and staggered out.

Jeremy opened his bedroom door and stared at Ulrich in shock. "What the – Ulrich, is that you?"

"Yolanda." It was as close as Ulrich could come to a cheer as he forced himself away from Jeremy. Behind him, Odd took up the explanation.

"Yeah, the dude's a werewolf; and apparently, he needs more meds from the school nurse."

"Apparently," Jeremy agreed, his fear-scent mounting.

"Come on, you can help me head him towards the infirmary."

Normally, Ulrich would have been very irritated to be "headed" anywhere, but he wasn't at all sure he could trust himself anyway.

* * *

He went down the stairs by leaping down them, clearing half the flight in one bound. The next leap got him on ground floor just as Aelita stepped out from the girls' dorms. Interestingly enough, she didn't smell frightened; that penetrated Ulrich's haze a little, and he wondered why.

"Come on, Ulrich," she said firmly, "Let's go to the infirmary. And if you try to attack me, I'll punch you in the nose." With that she boldly turned her back on Ulrich and started walking.

Ulrich followed Aelita…well, more like _stalked_; but she wasn't afraid of him, and she was going where he wanted to go. Ulrich figured that as long as he was pursuing Aelita, he wouldn't go haring off after anyone else.

* * *

He was right: they got to the infirmary without mishap. Unfortunately, his last hold on his werewolf mind gave out just as they got through the door, and he lunged for Aelita's throat.

Aelita's reflexes were good, and Yolanda's were even better – Aelita dropped to the floor and Ulrich barreled over her into Yolanda, who took advantage of his open mouth by tossing a pill into it. Ulrich tried to spit the pill back out, but Yolanda forced his half-morphed jaws shut and held them closed, wrestling him to the floor in the process.

"Does this happen often?" Aelita asked in a fascinated tone.

Yolanda shrugged, keeping her hands firmly pressed to Ulrich's jaws. "There are four werewolves here at Kadic; they're all pretty good about keeping stocked with anti-lunars, but every once in a while somebody forgets to restock when there's a high tide at six the next morning."

Ulrich finally swallowed the pill.

"What do the tides have to do with a werewolf's transformation?" Aelita asked blankly.

"Nothing, but they're affected by the gravitational pull of the moon."

Aelita made a face. Suddenly she smiled. "A werewolf will transform when the moon pulls on them, regardless of if it's a full moon or not."

"Right; it's why those of us in the know refer to the high tides when talking about a werewolf's strength." Then she looked down at Ulrich, whose thrashing had quieted. "Feeling better?"

Ulrich growled, but there wasn't any real hostility behind it; he was just too tired to manage anything humanly coherent.

"Good." Yolanda studied him thoughtfully. "Your shirt's torn."

Shutting his eyes, Ulrich focused on his bones and muscles resuming their human shapes. Turning back was just as uncomfortable as the initial shift, but in a few seconds he was standing straight again and studying his shirt. Yolanda was right: it was hanging looser than it was supposed to, and the neckline was ragged. At least he still had a shirt on – some of the transformations he'd actually completed left his shirt in tatters that couldn't be mended.

Disregarding the shirt, he looked at Aelita. "You didn't seem surprised to see me that way."

Aelita shrugged. "Yumi called me last night. She said that an 'elder' had dropped by – I didn't completely understand that part – and told her that one of her friends was a werewolf. And since Yumi only really has five friends, and three of them _couldn't_ be werewolves…" she spread her hands. "Either you or William was the werewolf."

Odd came into the infirmary just then, carrying an armload of clothes. "Aelita seemed to have everything in hand, so I went back for your clothes, Ulrich."

"Oh, thanks." Ulrich grabbed his shirt off the top of the pile and swapped it for his torn nightshirt right where he was standing. Then he grabbed the rest of his clothes from Odd's hands and ducked behind one of the screens Yolanda had set up. "Not scared anymore, Odd?"

"What for?" Odd asked innocently. "You're normal now."

Ulrich leaned around the screen and made a wry face at Odd. "You have a strange definition of normal."

"Eye of the beholder, Ulrich," Odd replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. "You're a werewolf; Yumi's a vampire, and Ae –"

"And _you_ are completely crazy," Aelita cut him off with a smile. "Hurry up and get dressed, Ulrich: we'll have class pretty soon."

Ulrich thought for a minute and suddenly realized what Odd had been about to say: _And Aelita's ten years older than she looks_. He'd forgotten about that – but then, it was easy to forget because she didn't _look_ twenty-one or whatever.

He finished getting dressed and started out the door.

"Wait!" Yolanda called. "Don't forget this! You'll need more anti-lunars in about twelve hours."

Ulrich turned around to take the fresh bottle from her hands. "Thanks," he mumbled. Then he turned and rushed out.

_I wonder…my fits have never been that bad before…_


	5. Chapter 5

_**A/N: **__What the heck is it about teenagers and vampire stories? I don't get it!_

Chapter 5

* * *

Elder Mandy was still asleep when Yumi left for school, and Yumi was glad about that; she didn't have to face Mandy over breakfast. _That_ would have ruined her appetite.

The first person she saw upon arriving was Jeremy, and he looked…resigned. Yumi wondered about that, but hadn't quite figured out how to ask before he noticed her.

"Did you know one of the Lyoko warriors was a werewolf?" he asked, totally deadpan.

Taken by surprise, Yumi's mouth took off on its own. "As of last night, I know that either Ulrich or William is a werewolf. Why?"

Jeremy shrugged. "It's Ulrich: I found out this morning when Ulrich ran out of anti-lunars."

Yumi winced. "Ulrich didn't, um…"

"No, he didn't go out of control; not really. Between me, Odd, and Aelita, we got him to the infirmary before he snapped."

"Does William know?"

"That Ulrich's a werewolf?" Jeremy suddenly grinned. "I figured that he had enough to deal with, knowing that you were a vampire. He doesn't need to know about Ulrich yet."

"Hm." Jeremy had a point. William obviously had problems with the supernatural population. On the other hand, though, forewarned was forearmed. "We might want to tell him _before_ Ulrich transforms right in front of him. Ulrich's been pretty good about taking his meds, but…"

"Yeah, Ulrich told me that he hated taking the anti-lunars and skipped whenever he could get away with it. Which is less often than it was before he had a roommate, but there are still times when he can." Jeremy's brows drew down. "He also said that if he'd ever met a known vampire before, he'd have figured out you were one long before you told us. Is that why you didn't know…"

Yumi held up a hand. "Right: I've never met a werewolf and known that I was meeting one. I'd narrowed it down to Ulrich and William." Yumi glanced around. "By the way, where is everybody?"

Jeremy shrugged. "P.E., no doubt. I don't know where William is, though. By the way, you know you're here early?"

Yumi sighed heavily. "There's a guest at the Ishiyama house. I'll probably be spending the night at the factory until she leaves."

"She's that bad?" Jeremy's eyebrows climbed up. "What's her name?"

"I don't know her last name…if she ever had one. She's called Elder Mandy."

Jeremy screwed up his face and looked up. "So…she's old enough to be my grandmother?"

"She's old enough to be _Aelita's_ grandmother," Yumi corrected. "The creepy part isn't her age; it's her appearance's lack of it."

Jeremy's eyebrows climbed again. "She looks younger?" Yumi nodded. "How much younger?"

"I'm not sure how old she actually is, to be honest; she _looks_ about nine." Yumi smirked at the look of shock that spread over Jeremy's face. "And she acts about nine, too."

"Who acts about nine?"

Jeremy started. Yumi just turned to nod at William, who came walking up.

"Hey, William; we were just talking about my new houseguest," she told him, "A vampire Elder named Mandy. She's probably ten times your age, but she looks and acts younger than Hiroki."

Then it was William's turn to look shocked. "Are all these 'Vampire Elders' like that?"

Yumi made a face. "No, she's the only one. She's also the only one with no set home, so she travels around and stays at the homes of different vampires over the course of the year."

William shook his head. "I guess you can't exactly turn her away, either."

"Rumor has it that happened once; the vampires who turned her away just disappeared." Yumi shrugged. "I don't know how true that is."

William tried to conceal a shudder; it didn't work. "And you people wonder why vampires unnerve me."

Yumi smiled. "Don't worry; there aren't all that many vampires here at Kadic…"

William looked up. "There's more than one?"

Jeremy shot William a weird look. "_Duh_: Hiroki's one."

"Oh."

"And there's one other vampire here besides me and Hiroki," Yumi put in.

"Who?"

Yumi shrugged. "I haven't looked. I only know there is another one because vampire magic leaves certain…echoes…that linger long after the vampire itself has left."

"Echoes? Never mind, I don't want to know. Just don't expect me to go visit your house while that elder's there."

"I won't. You'd better hope she doesn't decide that she wants to meet you – turning an Elder down is a death wish."

Jeremy cleared his throat. "There's something else…" He glanced at Yumi with an expression that seemed to say, "Your call."

Yumi sighed at William's anxious glance. "It's not all that important, but…don't push Ulrich too hard. I realized something about him…that you really wouldn't like."

"If it's about you," William began.

"No, it's not about me. Let's just say…his name has 'wolf' in its meaning for a reason."

That stopped William cold for a second while he processed that. Then he went pale.

"Don't tell me."

"Yup. You're not going to run away screaming, are you?"

William sighed. "Ulrich's in control of…it…right?"

Jeremy answered that one. "Yeah, he usually is."

"Then I can handle…" William's voice trailed off. "Um, did you say 'usually'?"

Yumi cocked an eyebrow at Jeremy. "You didn't say Ulrich had had trouble."

Jeremy shrugged. "Define trouble. It's just logic on my part: if Ulrich was able to skip taking his meds once in a while, then if he ran out he should be able to maintain control of his wolf side until he could get more. And he ran out this morning."

William's eyebrows lifted. "And…"

"Well…he sure wasn't relaxed."

Yumi nodded slowly. "Something's happened."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

* * *

"That would be an understatement," Ulrich told Yumi wryly when they'd all gathered for lunch.

"So what do you think happened?" Odd asked.

Ulrich sighed. "I never studied my own night-species. Guess what, I never wanted to be a werewolf in the first place; my own dad turned me when I was eight."

Yumi stared at Ulrich in horror. "That's too young!"

Ulrich glared at his half-empty tray. "He's the alpha werewolf in the family. He wanted to raise the next alpha werewolf in the entire city. And what he wants, he gets - even if he has to turn his own children."

"Wait, you weren't _born_ a werewolf?" William suddenly asked, looking more confused than ever.

"My mom's a normal human. Don't ask me why my dad married her, if he wanted to raise wolf kids. I think I'd had fifty-fifty odds of being normal, and I lucked out. For eight years."

"He might have married her for genetic diversity," Yumi began.

"Uh, irrelevant," Jeremy interrupted. "Right now we need to figure out what Xana is trying to do, and stop him."

"How do we know Xana's doing anything?" Odd asked.

"Right, the moon crosses different parts of the sky at different times during the year," William added. "Couldn't that impact how much trouble Ulrich has?"

"I thought of that already and looked it up," Jeremy told them. "There's a difference, but not a big one."

"Besides," Ulrich added as he tore a croissant, "Don't you think _I'd_ have included that when I said I'd had trouble?"

"Did the super-scan pick up any activated towers?" Aelita asked in a cool business manner.

Jeremy sighed. "I think it's glitched. It's barely giving me a consistent readout of Lyoko."

"Sneaky," William admitted. "Are you saying we have no way of knowing if a tower's even activated?"

"Exactly. Someone would have to physically go to Lyoko and search on foot."

"Again?" Odd complained.

William blinked at Odd. "That's happened before?"

"Yeah, I had to run all over the Ice Sector looking for a red tower, and a Tarantula set my tail on fire…"

"Focus," Ulrich growled. "What's important here is that we have no certain way of knowing if Xana's activated a tower, and we need to be sure."

Everyone was silent for a minute or two while they ate their lunches and thought over what had been said. Then Aelita looked up again.

"What do we do if it's not Xana?"

Ulrich cocked his head at Aelita. "Explain, please."

"Not every bad thing that happens in the world is caused by Xana. What if it's something else?"

Jeremy shook his head. "We should start by determining if Xana's involved. Look for more trouble _after_ we prove that it's not Xana."

He gave the rest of his tray to Odd and left with Aelita and William. Ulrich and Yumi considered Odd for a moment, and then ignored him and focused on each other.

"I noticed you didn't freak out," Ulrich commented.

"You weren't born a werewolf; you don't have the same resentment that an awful lot of werewolves have towards vampires. Besides, I had warning."

"Yeah, Jeremy told me. Is this 'Elder' going to be a problem?"

"I doubt it…unless she decides to do me a favor." Yumi shuddered.

Ulrich bit his fork and thought about that. "That's…bad?"

"Trust me: you _really_ don't want to owe a vampire Elder a favor. _Especially_ not Elder Mandy."

Odd looked up curiously. "What's so special about this Mandy?" he asked. At least, Ulrich _thought_ that was what Odd asked: he had his mouth full.

Yumi sighed. "Elder Mandy's history is pretty much _ancient_ history; what I know, I wouldn't swear was fact. But…this will make absolutely no sense without at least a little background on vampire girls. When a vampire girl is born, she is known as a Little Sister even if she doesn't have older siblings. Then, when she first becomes physically capable of having children, she becomes a Big Sister. When she actually _has_ children, she becomes a Matron, and when she's no longer able to have children she becomes a Matriarch. Matriarchs are the most powerful vampire women. Got it?"

Odd's head bobbed. So did Ulrich's, although he was a little slower to acknowledge that he understood.

"Elder Mandy never became a Big Sister."

Ulrich considered that. Before he could ask himself, Odd swallowed his mouthful and spoke up.

"Why not?"

"I'm not sure. Rumor has it that she was raped, and injured badly enough to where she could never have children no matter how old she was. She went straight from Little Sister to Matriarch, far too young."

"That's cold," Ulrich murmured.

Yumi's eyebrows lifted. "Uh-huh. She totally snapped; started using her new Matriarch magic to retain her childlike appearance. I guess she thought that as long as she could never have children…"

"She might as well never grow up," Ulrich finished for her with a sideways glance at Odd. "That sounds familiar. But what does Elder Mandy's 'I-will-never-grow-up' complex have to do with _especially_ not owing _her_ a favor?"

Yumi shook her head. "To be honest…that's all I've heard. Matriarchs can mark people with special tattoos that grant the wearer enhanced speed or strength, but…there's usually a catch."

Ulrich had a guess what that entailed, given that vampires were involved.

Odd didn't even have that. "Wouldn't the marks be worth the catch?"

"Suppose…" Yumi paused, scowling at the window. Then she tried again. "Odd, suppose you wanted a mark to make you completely irresistible to every girl at school. It would work, but you'd eventually have to use blood from each of the girls to pay off the vampire who marked you, or else you'd end up with girls dangerously crazy about you." She cocked an eyebrow at Odd, who was gearing up to say something, and added, "And when I say 'dangerously,' I mean _ready and willing_ to kill each other."

Ulrich idly wondered what Odd would have said; whatever it was, he sure wasn't going to say it now.

"Back to the original problem," Ulrich said to the air in general, "What do _you_ think is wrong with my shifting, Yumi? I'm coming up empty."

Yumi scratched her head. "If it's not you…maybe it's…" All at once she stopped and stared at Ulrich.

Ulrich blinked. Yumi's fear-scent was beginning to penetrate his anti-lunar-dimmed senses, and he didn't _think _it was of him. "What?"

Yumi stood up. "Let's go find Jeremy: if I'm right, it can only be because of a Xana attack."

Between the fear-scent, her voice, and her body language, Ulrich knew exactly why Yumi wasn't telling him: whatever she'd thought of, she _really_ didn't want to be right.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

* * *

"Xana attack," Jeremy groaned.

"What is it this time?" William asked from Lyoko. He and Aelita had already virtualized, and Aelita had been aiding Jeremy with the super-scan's repair from a tower.

"I'm looking." Jeremy tapped a few more keys. A window with lines of JavaScript popped up, and he started reading the information. "Hey, this looks familiar…"

"Familiar how?" Ulrich asked, absently scratching his ear.

"Whatever this attack is, Xana's done it before - or something like it, at least."

"What's he playing with?" Aelita asked, "Organics, machines, what?"

"Looks like he's combining his work with satellites, with the strength of some electrical generators, to..."

Ulrich made a face. "Generators…when did he…"

"That sounds familiar," Yumi put in.

Jeremy swiveled around. "You should both remember that one: you were airborne for a while."

"Oh, _that_ attack," Ulrich said dryly. "So what's he doing now, making the factory float away?"

Yumi shook her head. "With satellites? It actually sounds more like I guessed right."

"What _was_ your guess?" Odd complained.

The only answer Yumi offered was a shake of her head. Her idea still scared her too much.

"It looks like Xana reversed the trick he used during Ulrich's soccer game," Jeremy said, studying the JavaScript. "Strengthening the pull of gravity…but he's using the satellites, so whatever he's affecting with this attack, it's not actually _on_ the planet."

"So…what's he pulling on?" Ulrich asked.

"Why do you think your powers have been acting up?" Yumi asked with a groan. "I really _am_ sick of always being right, you know."

If the look on Ulrich's face was anything to go by, he'd made the connection.

"The moon," Jeremy said slowly. "He's bringing the moon closer to Earth - and since he's not tied to any supercomputer anymore, he's probably going to impact the planet and kill everyone with it!"

"THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING!" Odd shouted wildly, running around in circles and flapping his arms.

Ulrich gave Odd a very lupine snarl, stopping the Chicken Little impersonation in its tracks.

"Yeah, not helpful, Odd," Yumi added coldly, wishing silently that she could use that kind of dramatic threat; typical vampire sounds mostly involved bat shrieks that were more suited for battle cries.

"We'd better deal with this now," Jeremy said. "Even before the moon hits the earth, werewolves everywhere will probably be going out of control soon."

"If they haven't started," Yumi muttered. Then she lifted her voice. "I'd better get back to school. There are three other werewolves there, and we don't need them killing anyone."

Jeremy nodded. "Ulrich, are you going with her or virtualizing?"

Ulrich cocked his head. "Actually, I'd probably be safer virtualizing. You know, if the attack actually takes until high tide before we stop it."

"Right, you and Odd get to the scanner room. Yumi, find the werewolves at Kadic and don't let them kill anyone."

Ulrich and Odd rushed into the elevator. Yumi followed them in as the door closed.

"Hey, aren't you supposed to be going the other way?" Odd asked.

Yumi ignored him, jumping up to the ceiling and opening the trapdoor in it. Then she exploded into a flock of bats and flew back out, earning a screeched, "Did you see _that_?" from Odd.

_Okay, Yumi, admit it: you enjoyed that._

* * *

Ulrich and Odd arrived in the Ice Sector just as Aelita was coming out of her tower.

William glanced at Ulrich. "Hey, what would happen if you virtualized as anything less than human?"

Ulrich shrugged. "I don't know, actually: it's not like we've ever had the opportunity to find out."

"Actually there've probably been plenty of opportunities," Jeremy commented, "But you hadn't told any of us you were a werewolf, so…"

"Yeah, that too."

The three vehicles appeared all in a row. Ulrich jumped aboard his Overbike right away.

"Odd, do you mind if I took the Overboard?" William asked. "My sword doesn't mix well with handlebars."

Odd shrugged and jumped onto the Overbike behind Ulrich, who gave him a "do-I-look-like-a-taxi-to-you" look.

Aelita claimed the Overwing. "Where's the activated tower, Jeremy?"

"It's not too far from you. There are Crabs in the way, so watch out."

It didn't take long before they were greeted by the Crabs. Ulrich and William slanted past the first one, each slicing off two legs, before Aelita followed up to finish the job.

"Man, that's still fun!" William shouted.

Odd jumped off the Overbike and shot out another Crab, landing behind Aelita on the Overwing.

Jeremy suddenly spoke up. "Uh, good-news-bad-news time…"

"What's the good news?" Odd asked.

"There are only two more Crabs."

William cleared one of the Crabs as he dropped his sword on it. The explosion threw his sword into the air, and he spun around and caught it. "Yeah!"

"So…bad news?" Ulrich asked hesitantly. He had a pretty good idea what the answer was: Megatanks.

"The tower's guarded by Megatanks…"

Spot on. "How many Megatanks?"

"Well…uh…"

The three vehicles rounded a corner and came upon the tower - with six Megatanks in front of it.

"Aaah!" William yelped, overbalancing as he veered off. "You know, you could have _answered_ the darn question, Jeremy! I don't like nasty surprises!"

"Let's even the playing field," Aelita said calmly, shifting to one side and leaving Odd scrambling to keep the Overwing balanced. Then she used her Creativity to form a wall between them and three of the Megatanks. "There: three Megatanks, three vehicles."

Ulrich growled to himself at Aelita's composure as he focused on destroying one of the Megatanks; he and William had rounded the corner first, so Aelita'd had time to brace herself based on their reactions.

Suddenly, something thin and black leaped over the wall and landed between them and the tower. It was between a Creeper and a Tarantula in size, and had four spindly legs ending in long, sharp claws. Its white face loosely resembled a skull with pointed teeth, and a red laser glinted in its mouth as it hissed.

"What…is…that?" William asked slowly as he climbed to his feet; he'd managed to destroy his targeted Megatank, but destroyed the Overboard in the process.

"Uh…yeah…" Jeremy said slowly. "I was going to mention that…I don't know what it is."

"Great," Ulrich snarled. He gunned his Overbike and charged it. "What else can go wrong?"


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

* * *

Yumi didn't resume her human form until she reached the school. Once there, she saw that pandemonium had not taken over - yet.

"Good, the werewolves are in check," Yumi muttered, "For now. Now I just have to figure out who they are, and get them away from the humans." She didn't consider finding them to be the hard task: their anti-lunars would be wearing off soon, and their echoes would start reaching her sensitive ears. Getting them away from what the lupine mind considered "easy prey" would be much harder.

She took off at a run, straining her ears as hard as she could without turning them into large bat ears. There weren't any echoes yet…

"Watch it!"

Yumi staggered off-balance: she'd almost run over Sissi, who was crossing the quad with Herve and Nicholas.

"Where are you going in such a hurry?" Sissi demanded.

Yumi opened her mouth, a witty put-down ready, and then snapped her fangs shut on it - if she was to find the werewolves in time to be any use, Sissi was her best bet. She took a deep breath and tried again. "I need to find the werewolves here. Do you know who they are?"

Just as Yumi thought, Sissi didn't even blink at the definite implication that werewolves were real, although her companions reacted oddly. Not up on the news?

Sissi narrowed her eyes at Yumi and asked, "And _why_ would I be telling _you_ that - _vampire_?"

Yumi rolled her eyes with an aggravated sigh. "I don't have time for this. Look, something major's happened, and it's going to increase lunar magic to the point where the meds won't block it. I'm serious!"

Sissi just cocked an eyebrow skeptically. "And you expect me to believe that? Even if it's true, how do _you_ know?"

Yumi gritted her fangs. It wasn't like she could simply tell Sissi…

Well…why not? "Ulrich noticed it this morning when he ran out of anti-lunars. If you won't believe me, then…"

Sissi's eyebrows shot towards her headband. "What?"

Yumi eyed Herve curiously; she thought she'd heard a growl from him that wasn't human. Her response was aimed at Sissi, though. "You didn't know Ulrich's a werewolf?"

"I…"

Suddenly Herve's nose and mouth surged forwards into a furry, tooth-filled muzzle and he lunged for Yumi, who exploded into a bat swarm. When Herve hit the floor beyond Yumi, he was even less human.

"I didn't even know _Herve_ was a werewolf!" Sissi shrieked.

Yumi reformed and hurled the first spell she could think of at Herve. A translucent black sphere encased his head just as he turned back around.

"That won't last for very long in the sunlight," Yumi said as Herve started running in circles and clawing at the sphere.

"What is that?" Nicholas asked.

Yumi glanced at him, noting the undercurrents his worry made. "It's a sensory-block spell. For at least five minutes, he won't be able to see, hear, or smell us, and if he bangs his head on something he won't feel it. Now…do either of you have any idea who rubs Herve the wrong way?"

Nicholas made a face. "There's Ulrich…and Theo…do you think Theo's a werewolf?"

Yumi shrugged. "I think werewolves are only comfortable around each other _after_ they've established dominance." Yumi counted on her fingers. "Ulrich, Herve, and probably Theo; that's three, but there are four werewolves at Kadic. Are you sure nobody else get's on Herve's nerves?"

Nicholas scowled at Herve in concentration. Then he nodded. "Does that mean anything?"

Yumi sighed. "The most likely possibility is that the last werewolf has already established dominance over Herve. He still wouldn't like whoever, but he wouldn't let on." she started off.

"Where are you going?" Sissi shouted.

"To find Theo," Yumi called back.

"So what am I supposed to do when this spell of yours wears off?"

"Establish your authority! It's what you do to him anyway, right?" Yumi was around the corner and long gone before Sissi could think of a response.

By the time Yumi found Theo, he was fully transformed; she only recognized him from the tones in his bark. She got him to chase her into the boys' locker room, exploding into a bat swarm to dodge back around him, and then blocked the door with several lockers. Jim even showed up in time to be useful.

"I'll hold the fort down here," Jim told her. "I was part of a Night-Hunter band a couple years back - uh, you're a vampire, right? Probably don't want to hear about it…anyway, no half-grown werewolf can shove his way through me _and_ all these lockers."

Yumi gave him a thumbs-up. "Thanks Jim, you're a great sport!" with that she took off again. She pulled her cell phone out as fast as her fingers could grip it and called Jeremy.

Jeremy's first question was, "How are you holding up?"

"So-so; Herve and Theo are contained for now…"

"Herve's a werewolf?"

"Yeah, are you surprised?"

Jeremy was silent for a minute. "No, not really."

"So, anyway, Ulrich's on Lyoko, that's three werewolves, accounted for; I'm looking for the fourth right now. How much more time until the tower is deactivated?"

"Depends. Do you believe in luck?"

Then it was Yumi's turn for silence as she dashed into the girls' dorm. "Not really."

"Xana's designed a new monster; Aelita named this one - a Wraith. As far as speed goes, Ulrich's the only one keeping up with it. Also, its laser keeps shattering Odd's shield."

"Fantastic. Well, the good news is that this day can't possibly get any worse," Yumi began as she flung open the door to the girls' showers.

Her sudden appearance startled Emily, who spun away from the sinks to stare at Yumi, a pill bottle slipping from her shaking hand and scattering its contents on the floor.

For a long moment, neither girl moved. Yumi's eyes roved from the black-and-white pills around Emily's feet up to her shaky body and fever-bright, far-too-intense eyes.

"Yumi? Are you still there?" Jeremy called.

Yumi spoke slowly. "Remember how I said I didn't believe in luck? Forget it. Today is my lucky day. It just happens to be bad luck."

Emily's bones started reshaping; Yumi could hear them grinding. She could also hear Emily's growl.

"What does that mean?" Jeremy sounded really worried; he could probably hear that hostile growl, too.

"It means launch that Return to the Past the instant Aelita deactivates…"

Emily hurled her newly-shaped and half-furred wolf-body at Yumi with a loud snarl, aiming for her throat.

Yumi dropped her phone and leaped for Emily with a bat-shriek as she morphed herself, exposing fangs and claws as her skin paled to deathly white and her ears flared to mimic a bat's.

"Yumi? Yumi?" Jeremy shouted in panic from her phone. She ignored it: there wasn't time to answer.

She just hoped that the tower would be deactivated soon.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Jeremy said something about losing contact with Yumi; Ulrich didn't hear exactly what was said, since he was focused on keeping the Wraith busy. William had been destroyed already, and Odd and Aelita were making short work of the remaining Megatanks.

"I've got this," Ulrich shouted at Aelita, "Get to the tower, now!"

Aelita took off at a run and made it into the tower just as the Wraith tore through Ulrich.

Ulrich knew he was in trouble the instant he rematerialized on Earth: the pull of the moon hit him all at once with the force of a Megatank's elliptical laser, and he was half-morphed by the time the scanner opened. What was worse, he could smell William's fear from across the room.

"Jeremy, please tell me that Aelita's deactivated that tower by now," William pleaded.

"It's done. I'm launching the Return to the Past."

Ulrich struggled as hard as he could against the rising lupine instincts - which were unfortunately, at that moment, telling him to rip William's throat out. _He's not after my girl, he's not trying to invade my space, he's not my enemy, he's not prey…_

"Easy, boy," William whispered, edging as far away from Ulrich as he could get.

Ulrich's only answer was a snarl as he crouched, ready to lunge.

"Return to the Past, Now!" Jeremy suddenly announced.

_Oh, thank you Jeremy,_ Ulrich thought in relief even as he surged forwards to be stopped by the expanding white light.

* * *

The return trip landed them at about the same place as it had the last time it was launched: with everyone gathered in Jeremy's dorm waiting for Yumi. Instead of sitting next to Ulrich like last time, however, William was pacing around the room.

"Edgy about me, too, now?" Ulrich asked dryly as he rolled over.

"Shut up."

"Ulrich and Yumi have both been on our side for a long time," Aelita said calmly. "This changes nothing to my mind."

"Next time we go to Lyoko, I want to see if I can shift," Ulrich said, addressing the ceiling. "Maybe my Lyoko _wolf_ form has different powers."

Jeremy looked at his watch. "Not to change the subject, but…wasn't Yumi here by now the last time around?"

Aelita leaned over and looked at Jeremy's watch. "You're right: she's late."

William cocked his head. "Shouldn't the return trip have landed her in exactly the same place that she was on her way here?"

Odd wrinkled his nose. "Jeremy, before the tower was deactivated, you mentioned losing contact with Yumi."

Jeremy nodded. "She'd gotten in a fight with the fourth werewolf, based on what I could hear." Suddenly he paled. "You don't think she was…"

Ulrich vaulted off the bed and out the door, sniffing the air. Ignoring the others as they came after him, he bounded down the hall in search of Yumi's scent.

"Ulrich, you're, uh…going wolf," William called.

"Yeah," Ulrich growled back through half-morphed jaws, "I can't seem to track and stay completely human at the same time." Picking up a trace, he stopped and turned his head back and forth. "Got her!" He took off again - only to slam on the brakes as he rounded the next corner. "No!"

Yumi was sprawled motionless on the ground between the science building and the dorms. One hand was extended towards the dorm, as if she was in the process of crawling there - and there was a wide-open gash across the back of that hand. It looked fresh, but it wasn't bleeding.

Ulrich was by her side in a bound, knocking her onto her back with his half-lupine head. Jeremy was right behind Ulrich, and took Yumi's pulse.

"I can't…I can't make it out," he choked.

"She's…" Aelita began. She couldn't seem to finish - and also seemed unable to look away from Yumi's open jaws and extended fangs.

Ulrich whimpered and rested his head on Yumi's chest. Then he bobbed back up as a faint breath reached his ears. Yumi was alive, but just barely.

"She lost too much blood to regenerate, fighting that werewolf," he growled, "But not enough to kill her."

"Limbo," Aelita breathed. "She's stuck in limbo. She can't die, but she can't recover."

"Not without…" William began.

Ulrich bit his own mostly-human wrist until he tasted what he was waiting for, and then he returned to human form and finished William's sentence. "…Blood."

Bright red drops fell from Ulrich's fang marks into Yumi's mouth. One, two, three…and Yumi was still motionless.

"Come on, hurry up," Ulrich muttered. "Get a taste for this while I'm still bleeding."

Four more drops fell.

Yumi's hand slowly lifted and caught his arm, drawing it weakly down until his punctured wrist was pressed to her lips. Ulrich felt her tongue flick across his wrist, lapping at the blood. He knew the instant his wrist healed completely, because Yumi growled into it and opened her eyes.

"Yumi?" he asked uncertainly, drawing his wrist back.

Her eyes quickly focused on his face - no, on his neck…

Before Ulrich could make up his mind what his reaction should be, Yumi grabbed his shoulders with both hands and pulled herself towards him, driving her fangs into his neck.

"Ulrich," Odd asked worriedly, "Should she be doing that?"

"I did offer my blood," Ulrich said indifferently as he leaned back on his hands. As long as Yumi was still too weak to hold herself up, she might as well lean on him while she regained her strength.

"Doesn't it make a difference that you're a werewolf?"

"Uh…" Ulrich decided that that was a good question; unfortunately, he didn't know the answer to it. "It's a little bit late to worry, don't you think?" He pushed at Yumi slightly, and she didn't budge.

"Well, yeah."

Minutes passed; Yumi still drank Ulrich's blood. Her hard bite had stopped hurting a while back, and was little more than a dull ache; Ulrich thought dizzily that it was almost pleasant.

_If this is really it, at least I'm close to Yumi._ The thought made him smile slightly.

His head suddenly smacked the ground, jolting him out of his fog. He hadn't even realized that his arms were losing strength until he was on his back with Yumi on top of him.

Yumi's fangs unhooked from his neck and she jumped off him with a horrified gasp. "Ulrich…I…Ulrich, say something!"

A grin spread over Ulrich's face as he replied, "Something." He could barely hear his own voice, but he knew Yumi would hear it.

"_Ulrich_," Yumi sounded angry, and like she was going to cry. "I could have killed you."

"I'd have let you," Ulrich replied faintly. He tried to sit up and found that he didn't have the energy.

Yumi shook her head with a sigh and heaved him off the ground. "What are you, brave or stupid?"

Ulrich was still trying to decide the answer to that when he lost consciousness.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

"Don't worry, Ulrich's fine," Yumi told the others as she carried an unconscious Ulrich back to his dorm. "Totally out of his freaking mind, but I didn't drink too much of his blood."

"What's your criterion for that?" Jeremy asked blankly.

Yumi rolled her eyes. "He was still able to talk a little when I let go. That means I didn't take more than his body could replace. Werewolves don't bounce back as quickly as vampires, but it takes a lot to bring them down." She dropped Ulrich on his bed, where he shifted in his sleep to get more comfortable.

Aelita looked up. "By the way, _does_ that make a difference?"

"Does what?"

"You're a vampire. He's a werewolf. You drank his blood."

Yumi's smiled slightly. "Oh. _He's_ fine - although my fangs probably left scars on his neck."

William leaned against the doorframe. "Who's telling him?"

Odd grinned brightly. "That he's got love bites? I'll do it!" Then he ducked, causing Yumi's fist to clip the side of his head and send him sprawling. Lightly stunned, he added, "Oh wow, I almost dodged that."

Ignoring the prone figure on the floor, Yumi went on, "As for me, there _is_ a side effect; whether it's good or bad depends entirely on what school of thought the vampire you ask went to."

"This would be…" Jeremy began, trailing off expectantly as he looked at Yumi.

"It's called Wolfshadow; a vampire with this talent can turn into a black wolf, but only at night. They can use human speech, and they don't have wolf instincts to interfere with their intelligence and reasoning. Rumor has it that a vampire with Wolfshadow could actually fool a werewolf during a new moon; I don't know if that's true, though, and I wouldn't bet my life on it."

"Next you're going to tell us why some vampires consider this trick a bad thing, right?" William asked.

Yumi nodded. "Most of the old-school vampires consider Wolfshadow to be sacrilegious - like somehow using it betrays vampires everywhere." She didn't even bother hiding her disgust of that opinion.

"Does Elder Mandy think that way?" Odd asked, sitting up.

Yumi slapped her forehead in horror. "Oh no, I forgot about Elder Mandy! And it's later than last time - she's probably already at my house by now!"

Aelita ran past Odd and flung the window open. "You'd better fly, then."

Yumi got to the window in one leap, clearing Odd's head. Then she glanced back. "I'd be shocked to learn that Elder Mandy thought any differently about Wolfshadow." Without waiting to hear a response, she leaped out the window and exploded into her customary bat-swarm.

* * *

She realized that something was different the instant she got halfway through the door: the house was far too quiet, especially since she had vampire hearing. She _should_ have been able to hear every creak in the floor, every tick of the clock, even the breathing of whoever was home. Instead, there was true silence. Even more frightening, Yumi couldn't hear the echoes of her parents or Hiroki. It was beyond deafness to her – it was as if all vibrations had simply ceased to touch her.

Yumi stood completely still for a minute, too terrified to even move. Then she let out a breath when her own heartbeat reached her ears, loud and fast. Whatever had happened, it wasn't to her hearing.

_Elder Mandy._

Yumi stared in awful realization as she remembered Elder Mandy…and the legend of the last vampire family who turned her away. They had vanished – completely. Had their house been silenced like this? What had really happened to them? What if Elder Mandy had done something to the Ishiyamas? Despite her childlike appearance, she was a full-fledged Elder – Yumi's father couldn't do anything to her even if he could have overwhelmed his own respect for the Elders to protect his family.

Yumi shook her head fiercely. _Stop it. You're borrowing trouble that might not even be there._ Before the Return to the Past, the Ishiyamas had opened their doors to Elder Mandy. Although she wasn't one to reward behavior that she considered her due (thankfully, in Yumi's opinion), she'd never been known to punish where she didn't consider it necessary.

All at once she realized that she couldn't see much: the lights were all turned off.

_Just like a vampire: notice the lack of sound first, _then_ the darkness._ Yumi edged through the door and reached for the light switch. Then she hesitated, wondering if she wanted to know what lay in the dark.

_Yes – and I won't be able to hear it unless I switch to echolocation. Unless everything else here is unable to hear me,_ _they'll have an edge on me if I'm suddenly attacked._ She clicked on the light switch.

The front hall looked perfectly normal. Yumi wondered if that was reassuring or ominous as she ventured farther in, her footsteps unnaturally loud in the silence. The living room, dining room, and kitchen were also normal – and it was in the dining room that she first found evidence that someone actually lived in this house: the table was set for four, and a kettle of noodles rested in the center.

Yumi decided she wasn't hungry.

She climbed to the second floor. It was there, finally, where she heard the first actual ring of magic. It wasn't loud, but it resonated. Even though Yumi's eyes told her that it was exactly the same hall that she walked up and down day after day, her ears – and, unfortunately, her sense of balance – told her that the floor and walls were shifting like they were made of water.

Or blood…

Yumi swallowed down a wave of nausea. The smell of blood was overwhelming; she had to be imagining it, she hadn't smelled it when she walked through the door…

"You must be the first vampire-born I have ever met who is nauseated by blood," Elder Mandy's voice said, heavy with amusement.

Yumi looked up, startled. Elder Mandy was standing in the doorway of the guest room, hands and mouth covered in blood.

"Just because I have to drink blood, doesn't mean I have to like it!" Yumi snapped as panic and nausea unleashed her tongue and dulled her caution. "Not when I have so many friends who _don't_ have to drink blood! And what are you doing, anyway?"

"I was showing your family a new Mark of mine." Elder Mandy lifted her hands to her bangs.

"You _Marked_ my parents? My brother?" Yumi stopped talking when she saw the glittering red print on the Elder's forehead. In an instant, her nausea gave way completely to horror.

Elder Mandy's new Mark looked exactly like the Eye of Xana.

"You Marked my family with _that_?" Yumi gasped, unable to lift her voice above a whisper.

Hiroki crept out of Elder Mandy's room, providing the answer: his shirt was torn at the neck, and a blood-red Eye of Xana was sketched on his shoulder. His eyes glittered as bright as his fangs.

"Hi, Yumi," he said, his voice sounding all wrong to Yumi, "Want to come and play?"

"As if!" Yumi exclaimed. She whirled and leaped off the stairs, exploding into a bat-swarm. Or at least tried to – and she almost succeeded. But the pressure of whatever was silencing the house knocked her to the floor, where she landed hard.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you," Elder Mandy said calmly from the top of the stairs, "I laid a Silencing Spell on the house so that no other sounds would interrupt us. Of course, vampire magic requires sound whether humans can hear it or not, so…"

Yumi paused halfway to her feet as she worked through the implications. _So I can't use vampire magic in the house. Elder Mandy probably can, she laid the spell in the first place…so I'm in even bigger trouble…_

Elder Mandy started down the stairs at a sedate pace. Obviously, she didn't expect Yumi to escape.

_Wait a sec – Wolfshadow_ doesn't _require sound to work, because it's not technically a vampire spell! It won't defeat Elder Mandy, but it'll get me out of here!_ Yumi shut her eyes and focused on the memory of Ulrich's blood so hard, she forgot her nausea at having to drink a friend's blood in the first place.

It wasn't until her jaws extended forward into a wolf muzzle that she knew for sure she'd succeeded.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Ulrich jolted upright in bed, startling William, and wondered what had woken him up. The entire gang – well, all but Yumi – was there, staring at him in surprise, but their voices had been droning through his subconscious for a while with no real dramatic change in volume or tone.

_Where's Yumi?_

"Are you all right, Ulrich?" Jeremy asked.

Ulrich glared questioningly at Jeremy. "I'm fine…what woke me up?"

"Dog whistle?" William asked. He'd fallen onto Odd's bed.

"Kiwi didn't notice," Odd pointed out, nodding at the sleeping dog.

Ulrich lifted a sardonic eyebrow at a bruise that was showing through Odd's hair. "Who gave you the extra purple?" he asked.

"Yumi."

"Ah…" The question ran through Ulrich's head again, and this time he asked it. "Where is Yumi?"

Aelita straightened up from her crouch over Jeremy's laptop. "She had to get home; did she ever tell you about that vampire Elder visiting?"

"Yes…" And that, he suspected, was what was bothering him. _Why_ it was bothering him, and why it should suddenly wake him up _now_, he wasn't sure. "When did she leave?"

"About an hour ago," Jeremy answered, checking his watch. "Why?"

"Call her."

"Why?"

"Just…" Ulrich's voice trailed off in a frustrated growl. The truth was: he didn't know why. Somehow, he was sure that something was wrong, but he didn't know what and he didn't know _how_ he knew.

Aelita considered Ulrich for a long moment. Then she pulled out her cell phone and started dialing.

"How are you doing, anyway?" Jeremy asked after a minute. "Yumi wasn't particularly specific about what would happen to you after she bit you."

Ulrich rubbed his neck. "I don't…think I feel any different…"

Aelita pocketed her cell phone. "Yumi's not answering her phone. It's ringing, so it's definitely on; anybody else think that she would have turned it off if she was doing something with her family?"

Jeremy nodded. "Something's wrong."

"Well, let's go then!" Ulrich exclaimed. He jumped off the bed – and nearly collapsed. Only Odd's timely intervention kept him from hitting the floor.

"Ulrich, you can barely walk!" William protested. "I don't care how fast you think you can bounce back, you still haven't had enough time!"

Odd turned as best he could and grinned at Aelita. "He doesn't know Ulrich very well yet, does he?"

Aelita giggled and shook her head as she edged around them to open the door.

"Ulrich's not going to let a little thing like anemia slow him down," Jeremy told William. "Once he'd gotten banged up trying to drive a Xana-controlled bulldozer; he insisted on being virtualized the instant he regained consciousness."

William shook his head in disbelief. "Werewolves."

* * *

Jim was too close to the boiler room for anyone's comfort, so they started out onto the grounds. They had almost reached the manhole cover when…

"_RAWWOOOOOOOOOO_!"

A long, earsplitting soprano howl tore through the night.

Ulrich hit the ground before his shocked senses took in that Odd had dropped him; a quick glance to the side revealed that Odd was writhing in pain with both hands clasped firmly over his ears. Aelita had fallen on her face and covered her head with her arms in a similar futile attempt to block the noise. Jeremy's hands were over his ears, but he almost seemed more interested in the fact that his glasses had shattered.

"_What_ is _that_?" William shouted, also with his ears covered.

Somehow Ulrich managed to shift into a form that was mostly wolf, although he retained enough of his human shape to keep his own hands pressed over his ears, and he tilted his head up and gave his agony voice in a howl of his own.

The other howl stopped. Then it picked up again, not quite as loud but still terribly off-key, and almost seemed to have a word carried on it.

Ulrich blinked in astonishment and lowered his hands. _Was that…my name_?

Aelita sat up. "Is that another werewolf?"

"Would another werewolf really sound like _that_?" Odd asked, carefully uncovering his ears.

A black wolf tore out of the trees, morphing into Yumi as she slammed on the brakes.

Caught completely by surprise, Ulrich's mouth took off on its own before he could think to even resume full human form. "You howl like a hyena with a sore throat!"

"Save the howling lessons for later," Yumi told him as she flung the manhole cover aside, panic all too evident in her voice and her scent. "We have to get to the factory _now_! I don't know if Elder Mandy's Xana-possessed or just my family, but…"

"A _vampire Elder_ is under Xana's control?" Jeremy interrupted, staring at Yumi in horror.

"That's it, we're dead, it's _I Am Legend_ all over again," William said in a strange voice: it was like he felt so scared that running away screaming wasn't even an option.

"Shut up, William," Aelita growled. "How much time do we have, Yumi?"

Yumi grabbed Jeremy and Aelita, dragging them to the manhole. "Figure on none. Oh, and if anyone's willing to chance untried blood magic, I think I can supply you guys with temporary Protection Marks. They won't last for long against Elder Mandy at full power, but if she doesn't know you have them she might not bother using all her magic."

"I thought you said we couldn't count on extra time," William said as he climbed down after the three.

"We can't; but I can move fast enough to Mark all of you on the way, and I don't need to see to draw this one. Ulrich, there's no time to shift back, just come on!"

Ulrich dropped down and started running, completely ignoring his skateboard, while everyone else started following as fast as their wheels could propel them.

* * *

Ulrich waited at the top of the other ladder, ready to help the others up. Predictably, Yumi got there first: like Ulrich, she'd dispensed with the need of a skateboard in favor of her natural speed.

Yumi levered herself out of the sewers on bloodstained claws. "Everybody's Marked," she told him, "Even William, although he put up a fuss about it at first. I think he'd rather I bit him myself than let Elder Mandy put any Mark on him."

"Do you think there'll be any trouble with these things?" Ulrich growled, holding his hand out for the first person to reach the ladder.

"Nah, they'll disappear by sunrise. Hey, what do you think will happen if I virtualize like this?"

Ulrich eyed Yumi curiously; at some point on the way, her skin had turned deathly white and her face bore strong resemblance to a bat's…although Ulrich doubted that even the vampire bat looked quite that vicious. Her blood-red eyes glittered at him in the darkness.

"Don't know," he replied as he hauled Aelita up, the back of her neck bleeding from the design that had been scratched there by vampire claws. "But if you're really going in like that, I'll go in like this," and he favored both girls with a lupine grin, "Just to see what happens."


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Yumi studied her claws thoughtfully. All that had changed about them when she virtualized was that now they were polished crimson and black, and so tidy – for built-in weapons – that they might as well have been manicured. Also her hands were as white as her face.

Odd nudged her side. "Hey, you think _you_ look bad, check out Ulrich!"

Ulrich's lycanthropic form had influenced his Lyoko appearance pretty drastically. He supported himself on all fours much like a Tarantula, and his sword had disappeared; the latter of those two facts seemed to perplex him.

"I _always_ have my sword," Ulrich growled, swiveling his head to look at his right and left sides.

"_I_ always have my fans, Ulrich," Yumi pointed out, "But I don't think I need them when I'm like this." A sudden thought made Yumi feel at her sash. Sure enough, her fans had disappeared like Ulrich's sword.

Ulrich grimaced. "Next you're going to say I can just smash those things with my bare fangs."

"I don't have to – you already know it," Yumi teased.

"If you're done," William said tersely, "We've got a tower to deal with."

"Jeremy, are we activating a tower or deactivating one?" Aelita called.

"Deactivating; the tower is in an ice cave not too far from you. Only trouble is, there are Wraiths there."

"Of course there are," William sighed. "How many?"

"I'm having trouble counting them – they won't stand still, and I can't see too well without my glasses. There are a lot of them, though…and there are five Megatanks coming your way…fast."

Yumi's ears twitched. "Yeah, I noticed."

Odd pointed at the V-formation of Megatanks as they rumbled into view. "I don't think they're stopping to shoot, this time."

Ulrich turned and growled a warning. The Megatanks ignored it, but it probably made Ulrich feel better.

Yumi suddenly smirked as a movie trailer occurred to her. "They don't have to stop. Ulrich…"

Ulrich glanced at her curiously. Yumi knew he'd seen the same trailer – they'd gone together to the movie it had showed at – but would he remember it?

"…Speak."

His eyebrows climbed to his headband before he suddenly grinned fiercely at her. Then he aimed his muzzle back at the center Megatank and let out a very loud bark.

Which caused shockwaves to shatter the ice and rattle the Megatank until it exploded, sending two more off course to crash into their fellows.

The others cheered, despite being quickly drowned out by four more barks as Ulrich targeted the rest of the Megatanks.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Aelita laughed.

"That has to be a new record for number of Megatanks blown up in thirty seconds!" William shouted.

"Why the heck didn't you think of doing this _sooner_?" Odd demanded, grinning from ear to ear.

Ulrich looked back at Odd. "You'd have freaked out."

"I would _not_ have!"

Aelita interrupted the argument before it could go any farther. "_I_ would have; until I got my memories back, I had nightmares of being chased by wolves. Seeing Ulrich _as_ a wolf…"

Yumi nodded. "Let's get to that tower. I want to see what I can do."

* * *

"Uh, guys?" Jeremy asked anxiously, "I think Mandy's here. Any chance you could hurry up?"

"Hurry up and do what – kill ourselves?" William demanded as Odd tried to count the Wraiths.

"Shut up, William," Ulrich growled, "Those miserable excuses for vampires aren't any match for a _real_ vampire…right?" he added to Yumi.

"Right," Yumi agreed. Then she grabbed Odd's upraised wrist and dragged him into the cave. "Come on, Odd, we're climbing the walls. Ulrich, take a hike around the cave and find a good spot to howl. William, stay with Aelita!"

In a flash, Odd and Yumi were crawling around the inside of the cave together; Odd was shooting at anything black that moved, and Yumi was knocking Wraiths off the walls onto the shifting masses of their fellows. William tried to parry their shots, but it was clearly taking an effort to hold onto the sword whenever it took an impact.

About a minute later – and the number of Wraiths had only taken a slight dent – Yumi felt a long, steady vibration in the wall she was clinging to, and she grinned.

"Odd, when I say 'now,' we have to leap off the wall. Don't worry about your Shield; just get as many Laser Arrows as you can into those Wraiths by the tower. Got it?"

"Jump on your call and go crazy with the darts, right," Odd answered, still more than a little distracted by the Wraiths; the ones closest to the wall were just becoming aware that _something_ was happening.

_Fine; so long as they don't figure out _what_ exactly is happening._

Yumi waited while Odd kept shooting, her ears straining to catch one particular sound. If she missed it, she and Odd would both be in big trouble…

CRRRAAACCCKKK!

"_NOW_!" Yumi shrieked, vaulting off the wall – and surprising herself by exploding into a bat-swarm, much larger than she'd ever done before. She dimly noticed that Odd had also leaped in terrified reaction to the pitch of her signal, and had kept enough sense in his head to start shooting – although he didn't seem to be aiming at any particular Wraith.

The wall shattered into large, jagged fragments of ice and collapsed onto a crowd of Wraiths that had gathered beneath it. Ulrich's howl ceased a second or two later and he leaped in to join the fight.

From there on out, it was a madhouse: Aelita and Odd were both attacking any Wraith that was still moving with a frantic energy that suggested they'd been pushed beyond fear, William hacked his way in with the same energy, and Ulrich basically went feral on any Wraith dumb enough to attack him.

As for Yumi, she found that her bat-swarm could have the same basic results as Ulrich's Triplicate and Triangulate in his normal mode, and she was making full use of that. When Odd and William were devirtualized – within a few seconds of each other – Yumi used her bats to form a Wraith-free tunnel connecting Aelita to the tower. It took Aelita maybe five seconds to fully realize what Yumi was doing, but then she ran through the swirling bats and into the tower as Yumi closed the tunnel behind her.

"So," Yumi called as the tower's red glow faded and the remaining Wraiths disappeared, "What's the damage, Jeremy?"

"Not…quite…as bad as I thought it would end up," Jeremy gasped. He sounded disturbed.

"How's Elder Mandy? And did my parents get there?"

"The…uh…Elder's unconscious. Your parents aren't here, but Hiroki is – he's unconscious too, now."

Ulrich looked up. "What about you? Are you okay, do we need a Return to the Past?"

Jeremy burst out laughing; he was almost in hysterics. "A return trip would only be necessary if it wiped _my_ memory of this event. I think we can make do by just pretending these kids never left Yumi's house."

Yumi sighed. "Fine; bring me back, and I'll handle it – the rest of you guys get back to the dorms."

* * *

Ulrich and Yumi stared around the lab; it looked like a demented first-grader had thrown red paint everywhere. Odd was helping Jeremy down from the chair, and William was on the other side of the room. No one was hurt, although Hiroki had a lot of deep scratches that were healing themselves.

Yumi scooped Hiroki up with one arm and Elder Mandy with the other. Then she looked at Jeremy. "Promise me one thing, Jer: tell somebody about this. It doesn't have to be me, or Ulrich, just so long as you _tell someone_. You won't forget this unless you work through it, and you don't need nightmares."

Jeremy sighed, coming off his hysterics. "I know. It's still too close right now, but…I will."


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

* * *

_One week later…_

Ulrich hesitantly knocked on Yumi's front door. The last time he'd been here, he hadn't been anywhere near this nervous – but last time, he hadn't actually _known_ that the Ishiyamas were vampires, and there was a new moon tonight. He'd taken his meds, but that only dulled his lycan powers by about half when the moon was full or new.

Mrs. Ishiyama opened the door, looking very alert considering the hour.

"Hello," Ulrich said awkwardly. "Uh…could I take Yumi…out for a walk?"

That caught her by surprise, but she didn't react much. "Well…"

Yumi sprang down the stairs and slipped past her mother to lean on the doorframe. She'd put on some kind of subtle perfume; Ulrich could smell it. Something to do with lavender…

"I…suppose so…" Mrs. Ishiyama said doubtfully. "Just…be back by…I don't want you out after midnight, Yumi."

"I won't be," Yumi said casually, waving as she took Ulrich's arm.

Ulrich glanced back as the door closed. "Where's your dad? Your parents didn't fight again, did they?"

"No, Dad's seeing Elder Mandy off." Yumi shuddered. "And am I ever glad _that_ visit's over with."

"Why doesn't she have a permanent home like the other Elders, anyway? She might be over seventy or whatever, but she looks like a kid. Somebody ought to be worried about that when they see her."

"You answered your own question. Because she looks far younger than she is, she can't get her own residence. Nobody sees her, by the way: she prefers _not_ to be seen by 'mortals,' as she puts it, unless she wants them to see her." Yumi considered that and added, "Which is right before they die of blood loss, about a third of the time."

Ulrich cocked an eyebrow. "What happens with the other two-thirds of the time?"

"Another third end up completely insane; the rest get turned." Yumi looked directly at Ulrich. "And believe me when I say, the rumors have her 'playing' with humans before she does anything to them."

Playing. Right. "Jeremy told me about that night."

"He did?"

"Oh, yeah." _And I wish to God he hadn't._ "She's one sick little girl, and I don't mean young."

Yumi studied the sky for a moment. "How bad did it actually get?"

"Depends on your definition of bad; she clawed your brother up…"

"I gathered _that_ from the smell." She didn't sound all that horrified at the thought, either.

"…And he volunteered, too. I don't want to know what she did to _him_."

Yumi sighed. "I can guess. Rumor says, she's always been a talented manipulator – of thoughts, emotions, willpower…that's the kind of stuff I was blocking the others against when I Marked them."

"Fits with the rest of it…along with the blood on the walls, she was inviting Jeremy to come play with her and Hiroki. After a few rounds of that, Jeremy was starting to want to."

One of Yumi's eyebrows lifted and she nodded. "Like I said, my Marks wouldn't have held up for long against any Elder, but they would have slowed the effect…at least enough so that the target realizes what's being done to them." Then she spun to look at Ulrich with an expression hovering between panic and regular apprehension. "Wait, he didn't…actually…did he?"

Ulrich laughed a little. "Kind of: he said that he didn't know how to play the games she liked, and that he wasn't good at games anyway, so she started him out 'slowly.' By the way, he told me to pass on to you how thankful he was, to both of us, that we got Aelita to that tower before she got him to full speed."

"Hm." Yumi bit her lip in thought. "I hope that doesn't come back to bite us later."

That startled an actual laugh from Ulrich, although he tried to squash it back down when Yumi looked at him sharply. "Sorry, I didn't plan for that to…I didn't mean to sound like…"

Yumi shrugged, displaying her fangs in a grin. "Predictable saying, isn't it?"

Ulrich nodded sheepishly. "Also, I'm…not _off_ my meds, but they're not at their most effective during the highest tides."

Yumi's grin vanished as she processed that. "So…does that mean you're going to go wolf?" she asked cautiously.

"Yeah, probably; I probably _won't_ go feral, though, the meds should hold out that much." Ulrich took a deep breath. "Why would it – I mean, is it likely that those games will 'come back to bite us'?"

"We're talking about an Elder; who can say for sure?"

Ulrich shrugged, not trusting his voice for a response. Yumi was the vampire, and the closest they had to a vampire expert; if she didn't know if Jeremy's nightmare games would be a problem in the future, they weren't likely to ever find out. Unless it actually became a problem…

"So where are we going?" Yumi finally asked. Ulrich had actually been wondering when she would ask – they'd been walking in the forest for a little while now.

"Remember that cliff we'd climbed up to get away from that Xanafied wolf pack?"

"Yes…"

"We're going there for howling practice."

* * *

"No, no – stop, stop, stop," Ulrich protested two seconds into Yumi's first howl, which sounded more like a banshee than a wolf.

"Is it really that bad?" Yumi asked. Ulrich was a little jealous that she could speak – as a wolf – and still sound exactly the way she did when she was a human. _He_ was currently still fully human, although he had doubts about how long that would last.

"Really, it is." Ulrich gently touched her chest. "You're supposed to howl from here, deep down; not from your throat. This is a wolf, not a bat."

Yumi's red wolf-eyes blinked. "All my bat screeches are focused in my throat."

"See? Werewolf howls are deeper than that." Ulrich was a little relieved: he hadn't known how vampires made those skull-piercing shrieks, and had made a wild guess about where those screams first began.

Yumi's second howl was better.

"My first howl had been all about pain," Ulrich said softly.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Yumi asked. "You know, to get it out of your system?"

Ulrich snorted. "Nothing could get _that_ out of my system. I'm a werewolf."

Yumi tried another howl, this one a little better than the last. "So your first howl is permanently tied to when you were first turned?"

"That's…accurate," Ulrich admitted. "I don't want to talk about it…I don't even like thinking about it…"

A ripple of pain cut his voice off.

Yumi looked at him curiously, and then smiled…somehow. "It's the high tide, isn't it?" she asked softly.

Ulrich snarled in response as his body morphed from human to lycanthrope. The meds would dull his wolf-senses, but the actual odds that they would keep him from going feral were pretty iffy.

Yumi tilted her muzzle skyward again and howled – almost-properly. This made sense to Ulrich's wolf-mind: a good howl with a pretty female before the hunt whetted the appetite. To Ulrich's human mind, it was a relief: if he and Yumi sang together long enough, he could get the hunting instincts back under control – even if not, humans would stay well away from there.

Ulrich's muzzle whipped skyward and he howled at the starry sky. The part of his mind that was still human suspected that with a proper howl to model after, Yumi's next howl would be perfect.

It was.


End file.
